azreefgirl
Member
Looks great! Love the fish!!!!!
Azfishgal New Tank Diary!
- Thread starter azfishgal
- Start date
azfishgal
Active Member
Tested my QT this morning and this is what I came up with:
Amonia 0.1
Nitrites 0.5
pH 7.8
Alk 2.9
Temp 78
sg 1.025
My Amonia levels have come way down and the Nitrites are starting to fall. :cheer: But as you can see my pH is low and Alk is high. Can I fix this with a simple water change or do I need to add a buffer or something?
(I'm using Tropic Marin salt and have one piece of lr.)
Started to mix the salt water for the large tank. I have about 25 gallons mixing in a trash can right now. It's going to take several days to fill up this large of a tank.
I was going to mix the salt in the tank, but after my episode with my QT I decided mixing it outside the tank was best. BUT, I won't wait the usually 3-4 days as nothing is in my tank, so I figure a good 12-24 hour mix should be ok before dumping it into my tank. I'll have to keep the pump off until the water makes it over the overflow and fills up the sump, but I will be running the powerheads to keep the water moving.
So does everything sound right? Am I heading in the right direction?
Amonia 0.1
Nitrites 0.5
pH 7.8
Alk 2.9
Temp 78
sg 1.025
My Amonia levels have come way down and the Nitrites are starting to fall. :cheer: But as you can see my pH is low and Alk is high. Can I fix this with a simple water change or do I need to add a buffer or something?
Started to mix the salt water for the large tank. I have about 25 gallons mixing in a trash can right now. It's going to take several days to fill up this large of a tank.
So does everything sound right? Am I heading in the right direction?
azfishgal
Active Member
Originally Posted by Katz
Order for setting up a tank:
Step 1: add rock
Step 2: add six inches of salt water
Step 3: add sand
Step 4: fill the tank up with salt water
Step 5: cycle
This is the way my LFS told to how to set up my tank. I also read this in a Saltwater fish book.
Hope this helps.
Katz
Well, I'm not going to add sand until my lr has sat in my tank for a few days with everything running. That way, any die off I can cyphon before putting in the sand.
Order for setting up a tank:
Step 1: add rock
Step 2: add six inches of salt water
Step 3: add sand
Step 4: fill the tank up with salt water
Step 5: cycle
This is the way my LFS told to how to set up my tank. I also read this in a Saltwater fish book.
Hope this helps.
Katz
Well, I'm not going to add sand until my lr has sat in my tank for a few days with everything running. That way, any die off I can cyphon before putting in the sand.
azfishgal
Active Member
Originally Posted by saltn00b
um i dont think you will see any die off to syphon??
the LS will cycle with the rock, i agree with Katz' technique
My lr will be shipped (probably from here) so I'm assuming it will have some die off, plus it might take me a few days to get my aquascaping the way I like it, so don't want to add sand until I'm happy with it. I'm using the set up guide from "The New Marine Aquarium". Will what I'm doing be bad for my tank? I'm in no hurry, so don't see the problem with doing it this way. But please enlighten me if I'm wrong.
um i dont think you will see any die off to syphon??
the LS will cycle with the rock, i agree with Katz' technique
My lr will be shipped (probably from here) so I'm assuming it will have some die off, plus it might take me a few days to get my aquascaping the way I like it, so don't want to add sand until I'm happy with it. I'm using the set up guide from "The New Marine Aquarium". Will what I'm doing be bad for my tank? I'm in no hurry, so don't see the problem with doing it this way. But please enlighten me if I'm wrong.
ladylostinsalt
Member
Sorry to jump in here, but since I'm almost at the same place that AZFISHGAL is at.....won't it harm the LR to be out of the water for the amount of time it would take to completely cover them with SW?
saltn00b
Active Member
if you are getting LR shipped , yes there will be die off. but die off can be either soft gooey dead sponge and etc that you can and should wipe off / rinse in a dipping bucket of saltwater OR it can be microscopic algae die off. you will likely have both. assuming you are getting the LR shipped correctly with moist paper towels to keep them 'live' - you need to get them in water soon to keep it alive. i think its easier to aquascape while in water, and you will likely re-do your rock work numerous times anyway. i would say, lay your rock out, find the big pieces and then drop them in as the base rock as you want, then put the sand in, and everything else can be changed later.
azfishgal
Active Member
Originally Posted by saltn00b
if you are getting LR shipped , yes there will be die off. but die off can be either soft gooey dead sponge and etc that you can and should wipe off / rinse in a dipping bucket of saltwater OR it can be microscopic algae die off. you will likely have both. assuming you are getting the LR shipped correctly with moist paper towels to keep them 'live' - you need to get them in water soon to keep it alive. i think its easier to aquascape while in water, and you will likely re-do your rock work numerous times anyway. i would say, lay your rock out, find the big pieces and then drop them in as the base rock as you want, then put the sand in, and everything else can be changed later.
I was thinking of getting base rock from my lfs (dried out rock). They have a good selection and several large pieces with some great shapes (bowl like) to make for a foundation for my lr. I was thinking this would be good so the sand would not cover as much of my lr, which of course would cause more die off, from what I understand. It would also be less expesive for me to have base rock as my foundation. What do you think?
Also, I was going to get 80lbs of dry sand and 20 lbs of ls (from SWF). Would that be good? My local fish store sells a 40 lbs bag of dry sand (CaribSea Aragonite) for $44.
if you are getting LR shipped , yes there will be die off. but die off can be either soft gooey dead sponge and etc that you can and should wipe off / rinse in a dipping bucket of saltwater OR it can be microscopic algae die off. you will likely have both. assuming you are getting the LR shipped correctly with moist paper towels to keep them 'live' - you need to get them in water soon to keep it alive. i think its easier to aquascape while in water, and you will likely re-do your rock work numerous times anyway. i would say, lay your rock out, find the big pieces and then drop them in as the base rock as you want, then put the sand in, and everything else can be changed later.
I was thinking of getting base rock from my lfs (dried out rock). They have a good selection and several large pieces with some great shapes (bowl like) to make for a foundation for my lr. I was thinking this would be good so the sand would not cover as much of my lr, which of course would cause more die off, from what I understand. It would also be less expesive for me to have base rock as my foundation. What do you think?
Also, I was going to get 80lbs of dry sand and 20 lbs of ls (from SWF). Would that be good? My local fish store sells a 40 lbs bag of dry sand (CaribSea Aragonite) for $44.
azfishgal
Active Member
Originally Posted by saltn00b
yes buying base rock and aragonite is a great way to save money, it will all be live in time
Great, that's what I will do then. So on my list for the next week is:
80 lbs of dry sand
20 lbs of live sand (SWF)
100 lbs of live rock (SWF)
?lbs of base rock (however much I need to act as a base, 5-7 large pieces should do it)
I will be adding more lr in the future, but will start with this. (Of course I know to cure my future shipments of rock before putting it into my DT.
)
Now I just need to empty out my tank :scared: and start adding salt water.
yes buying base rock and aragonite is a great way to save money, it will all be live in time
Great, that's what I will do then. So on my list for the next week is:
80 lbs of dry sand
20 lbs of live sand (SWF)
100 lbs of live rock (SWF)
?lbs of base rock (however much I need to act as a base, 5-7 large pieces should do it)
I will be adding more lr in the future, but will start with this. (Of course I know to cure my future shipments of rock before putting it into my DT.
Now I just need to empty out my tank :scared: and start adding salt water.
beatlesfan
Member
Try FillPro It is good sand (although it's color is brownish instead of grayish like the Carib is). It does contain some silicates which lead to soem diatoms but i believe they arte easy to take care of. Oh and the best part is it sells for around $11 for 50lbs.
azfishgal
Active Member
Originally Posted by Beatlesfan
Try FillPro It is good sand (although it's color is brownish instead of grayish like the Carib is). It does contain some silicates which lead to soem diatoms but i believe they arte easy to take care of. Oh and the best part is it sells for around $11 for 50lbs.
Call me crazy, but I'll pay more for the better sand. I like the color of the Carib sand, so will probably stick with that. Compared to the 100 lbs of lr I'm buying the sand is the cheap part.
But thanks for the suggestion, I appreciate it.
Try FillPro It is good sand (although it's color is brownish instead of grayish like the Carib is). It does contain some silicates which lead to soem diatoms but i believe they arte easy to take care of. Oh and the best part is it sells for around $11 for 50lbs.
Call me crazy, but I'll pay more for the better sand. I like the color of the Carib sand, so will probably stick with that. Compared to the 100 lbs of lr I'm buying the sand is the cheap part.
extremepcs
Member
I used CaribSea Seafloor Special Grade reef sand in my 125 (dead sand). Nice stuff!
beatlesfan
Member
ok whatever works for you. I personally liked the colort of FillPro before i saw the price so i had the same idea as you. Anyways... It looks great! :jumping:
EDIT: That is your tank looks great. If you didn't catch that.
EDIT: That is your tank looks great. If you didn't catch that.
teresaq
Active Member
sounds good, and you can add the dry sand and base rock right away, then add the live as soon as it gets in.
little water, base rock, dry sand, and rest of water. wait for live to get in and add.
also, base rock can be inter stacked with live rock. bigger savings.
cant wait to see this thing running
little water, base rock, dry sand, and rest of water. wait for live to get in and add.
also, base rock can be inter stacked with live rock. bigger savings.
cant wait to see this thing running